Zion Hill First Baptist Church
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Rev. Lawson Reed organized this black Baptist congregation in 1879 and led the first worship services under a brush arbor. This structure, erected in 1914 on land purchased from John Schmidt, was the third church building occupied by the membership. Designed by the noted German-born architect Dietrich Antone Wilhelm Rulfs (1848-1926), it combines Victorian styling with Gothic Revival detailing. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1977
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Rev. Lawson Reed gathered this Black Baptist congregation in 1879, holding the first services in the open air beneath a brush arbor in the years after emancipation. By 1914 the growing membership raised its third home, a handsome brick church that blended Victorian styling with Gothic Revival detail. It was designed by Diedrich Rulfs, the German-born architect who shaped much of Nacogdoches's built landscape — a notable commission for a church founded by freedpeople.
Why it matters
Zion Hill reflects how African American communities built enduring institutions of faith and self-determination in the decades after slavery, leaving landmarks that anchor their neighborhoods today.
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Related people
- · Lawson Reed
- · Diedrich Rulfs
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Oak Grove Cemetery
Nacogdoches, TX
Once called the "American Cemetery," Oak Grove sits on land granted in 1826 to empresario Haden Edwards, leader of the Fredonian Rebellion, who is buried here. Its graves read like a roster of the Texas Republic: signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, veterans of San Jacinto, Sam Houston's secretary of war and personal physician, early millionaires, a master architect, and formerly enslaved men and women. Burials relocated from an older Spanish cemetery reach back to a stone marked "Father Mendoza, 1718."
Zion Hill Baptist Church Cemetery
Nacogdoches, TX
When Rev. Lawson Reed reached Nacogdoches in 1878, he found no organized Baptist church for the Black community, so in 1879 charter members began worshiping under a brush arbor before the Walton family donated land. The cemetery's earliest marked grave dates to 1897, and among those laid to rest are Reed himself, members of fraternal orders, and Jim Smith, a World War I veteran. After falling into disrepair, the ground was taken up for care by the city in the 1970s.
William ("Bill") Goyens
Nacogdoches, TX
Born enslaved in South Carolina in 1794, William "Bill" Goyens escaped to Texas in 1821 and built a life of wealth and standing as a free Black man on the East Texas frontier. He aided the Army of Texas during the 1836 revolution and served as interpreter for the Houston-Forbes Treaty with the Cherokees that same year, earning a reputation for generosity before his death at Goyens' Hill in 1856.
E. J. Campbell School
Nacogdoches, TX
Opened in 1903 as the Nacogdoches Colored School and renamed in 1937 for longtime principal E. J. Campbell, this school served African American students from the town and surrounding countryside under Texas's 'separate but equal' segregation laws, which in practice left Black schools underfunded. Beginning under Campbell, students regularly visited Prairie View Normal School to glimpse the possibilities of higher education, and the results were remarkable: at one point more than two-thirds of graduates went on to college, many returning as certified teachers. The school served its community until Nacogdoches fully integrated in 1970.